According to a new research from U.S antivirus firm NortonLifeLock and the IMDEA Software Institute in Madrid, Spain, Google’s official Play Store has been the largest distributor of malicious Android apps which contains the malware. However, it is still one of the safest places to download your apps.

After they investigated 7.8 million apps installed on 12 million Android products for 4 months in 2019, security researchers has discovered that “between 10% and 24% of Android devices running Norton or Symantec antivirus software encountered at least one malicious app (including the adware).

Of the malicious apps identified in this study, 67% of them had made their way onto the devices via the Google Play Store. Many of these apps disguise themselves as useful services like VPNs. However, they actually contain malwares which can steal your data or send you a lot of unwanted ads.

How to stay safe? The only things we can recommend you to do is to install a reputable anti-virus app (eg. Kaspersky, Norton, etc.), only to download the reputable apps (apps you see many people are using and has a reputable background such as Facebook, Instagram, or similar apps), and to stay away from clicking suspicious links, e-mails and messages, videos, etc. (if anyone sends you something, don’t click it first! Think first).